


Comeback

by superblooper



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gen, angsty angst, post Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superblooper/pseuds/superblooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he looks at himself and if she looks at herself, they'll simultaneously lash out at their reflections, smashing mirror images to bits because of the Should’ve and the Would’ve and the Could’ve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comeback

**Author's Note:**

  * For [museumheists@tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=museumheists%40tumblr).



> it’s less shippy than what i originally set out to write, gomen my homen. maybe i’ll get around to writing sloppy makeouts someday but for now, mt. justice sized serving of snow and angst.
> 
> specifically dedicated to lana for shoving the glory that is dick/artemis back in my face. that ho ho ho. in actuality, lana is wonderful and amazing and so deliciously evil.

Her breath fogs between them, plumes of pearl gray. But he’s so still that she would’ve sworn she was staring at an life-sized statue. A chiseled (not muscle, but rock) incarnate of Nightwing would be a nice break from all the grimacing gargoyles. After an age of silence, an identical ribbon of gray sighs from Dick’s lips.

"April Fool’s isn’t for another four months," he says tiredly, because he can never say anything outright like a regular person, and because she knows him as Dick, the words sting, like the air in her lungs. Artemis grits her teeth, and stomps her feet into a wider stance.

“I’m aware, dickface,” she answers him, warning him silently that she didn’t want his doubt or self loathing. He doesn’t reply, and she takes that as implicit permission to step closer. Snow crunches beneath her boots. The cut on his cheek had congealed into a messy smear. She wants to wipe away the red with her thumb.

“You wanna know what I’m also oh so keenly aware of?” she asks, rhetorical, dancing around the subject to entertain his interest, speaking in loop de loops and tilt a whirls so he can understand. “I’m aware that in the years I’ve known you, and much to my disappointment, you’ve outgrown your funsized status-”

“-or you’ve shrunk.”

“Quiet.”

“As the lady wishes.”

“-you sneak off in summer to whereever the hell Haley’s is to catch a show. You like to sing Cruella Devil when Kaldur issues the snow gear and you prance around in that stupid fur lined cape. You’re actually a decent singer. You got gum in your left front pouch and condoms in your right. But the condoms are for the girls you see in the Narrows and the gum is for your awful nerd breath.”

All the while, Dick was watching her warily, but he obeyed her command in utter silence. His fingertips occasionally twitched, but otherwise he kept his peace.

“You dropped by my window last week to see if I was used to Gotham yet. Then suddenly manners occurred to you and you stopped by, knocking at the front door and brought me Alfred’s Christmas cookies.” She can touch him now, with how close they’re standing, she does touch him. Through the kevlar, she can’t sense his warmth, but he’s solid and alive and he’s trying so hard to pick up the pieces of her when he’s so shattered himself. “Thanks, Dick.”

Abruptly, he tips backward, landing, spread eagled and muffled, into the snow. Pulling away from her hand.

“What’re you doing?”

“Preparing to snow angel with the enthusiasm only toddlers from barren Arizona dream of, Arty, duh,” he supplies dully. His hair must be getting wet. The nape of his neck must be peppered with icy crystals, and ruined snowflakes are gathering in his bangs. Artemis frowns, giving him nothing but silence. He sighs again. “Alternatively, I’m waiting for a blizzard to bury me beneath at least three feet of snow.”

She squats beside him, trying her best to reign in another rush of pity, another wash of sorrow. She’s gotten better at it. M’gann helped a lot. “That’s a recipe for hypothermia and-or suffocation, dummy,” she informs him, suddenly bone tired and worn out.

“I’m aware, artichoke,” he says, and maybe this time, there’s an edge of a smile in his voice. It’s like his old swagger, complete with a mischievous, crooked grin, is being pressed beneath the weight of guilt and anger and sadness and growing up. She wants to help him, just like he wants to help her. 

“It’s a cheap move, recycling my lines,” she retorts, more tired than scolding. Her fingers are less articulate than gloves, but Artemis manages to peel up the edge of his mask. When she makes first contact, he flinches hard, a slurry of snow crinkling beneath him as he starts. His eyes must’ve been closed. He must not have expected her touch. Slower this time, she works the mask away from his face.

His eyes are closed. The rise and fall of his chest beneath his bright blue bird is so slight, at a glance he could be dead. The thought makes the ache inside her chest curl at the edges, like paper smouldering away. She clutches the mask loosely in her lap, fiddling with it, tracing the edges with her thumb. 

“It’s a cheap move-” it’s her turn to jump, startled by the sound of his voice, even though it’s barely a murmur- “asking someone to come out of retirement, just so they can lose everything.” Her head whips up, her eyes staring at him, mute with shock. Everything inside her is gone, she is hollow and brittle and worthless. Dick has a faint, bitter turn to his lips, nothing but a mockery of a real smile. He chokes out a chuckle, sour like he’s hit the wrong note on a piano.

“Shut up,” she whispers, sure the demandrequestplea will be drowned out by the falling snow. She swipes angrily at her eyes with her knuckles. Too many droplets have clustered on her lashes. Artemis cried all her tears ages ago.

“It’s a cheap move betting everything on a double reach around,” Dick tells the heavy clouds, gasping out another jagged laugh. Artemis chooses to believe that the snow has melted on his cheeks, because her heart can’t take much more battering. He obviously doesn’t hear her heart splinter, because he continues, feverish, pouring out a flood of words barbed with a loathing pitch black and all directed at himself. “I should’ve talked Kaldur down, I should’ve told Conner, I should’ve trusted M’gann. There were so many things I should’ve done, ‘Mis.” He opens his eyes- slate blank, blue eyes- turned to Heaven and cries out. “I should’ve, would’ve, could’ve,” he confesses, emotionless again. “But I didn’t and I wasn’t and now I can’t. Now he can’t.” 

Artemis bit through her lip rather than let her anguish escape her. Now that silence has blanketed them again, she can breathe easier, let that hard coil relax slightly. She can collect her thoughts, and she can try and scoop up her insides and make herself right again. “I could’ve too,” she echoed back, hesitantly. Her voice sounds hoarse and she has to paw at her cheeks again, because this damn snow keeps getting in her eyes.

He jerks upward, twisting his torso to look at her with his naked, ernest eyes, brows furrowing together. She can tell the reassurances and apologizes are bubbling to his lips. “No, ‘Mis, that’s not your fault-”

“The hell it isn’t, Dick!” So she stopped them. She can’t take it anymore. If he looks at himself and if she looks at herself, they’ll simultaneously lash out at their reflections, smashing mirror images to bits because of the Should’ve and the Would’ve and the Could’ve. What she needs- what they both need- is starting to resolve in front of her. “I told him he had nothing to worry about! I knew the risks, I knew he knew the risk.” She bares his teeth at him, quelling the half formed protest on his tongue. “You’re giving yourself way too much credit if you thought you hoodwinked me into your plan.”

He closes his mouth, lowers his eyes to her boots. He looks so ashamed. None of that cocky _I’m a Bat Brat_ attitude. Just fragile determination to keep carrying on wrapped around weary bones.

“I’m still sorry.”

“That makes two of us,” Artemis says. She can’t handle this. It’s too much, and even after six months, she feels sick talking about such a grievous wound.

Her muscles protest and burn as she heaves herself to her feet. She dusts off the snow gathered in her lap mechanically with one hand, before offering it to Dick. Without his mask, she can see the bruises beneath his eyes, a nasty purple and sallow mix. She can see his wary look, like he’s aware she could be hauling him up to deck him in the nose. While breaking some faces sounds just her type of catharitic, she knows breaking his face would only add to her turbulent mood.

When he’s on his feet, she wordlessly presents his mask to him, lips tight.

“Thanks.” 

They’re not finished here. She’s still steeping in a cold brew of her own heartache and it doesn’t look like Dick’s razor edged self disgust had softened since June.

“Anytime,” she says, promising something deeper. She can shoulder that burden of the mask for a little while for him. Hopefully.

She leaves him re-applying the sharp angled mask and heads home, back to her lonely one person apartment. But even so, a flicker of brightness buzzes at the base of her skull. Cautiously, she turns and lifts her fingers in a jaunty farewell salute, at odds with the tone of their conversation. Dick lifts his head, catches sight of her, and returns the sentiment with a Vulcan salute.

He’s a gigantic, guilt-ridden, overattentive idiot, but he wrangles a faint smile onto her lips, nonetheless. And that's enough to strengthen her resolve: they'd get through this. Both of them. She'd grit her teeth and make sure of it. And if she faltered... she was reasonably sure Dick would pick up the slack. Yeah. They'd make it.


End file.
